


White Mountain Laurels

by kiskisbella



Series: Jeith Week (2018) [6]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Collage, Flowers, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Unrequited, hanahaki, pinning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2018-09-15
Packaged: 2019-07-12 13:32:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15996221
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiskisbella/pseuds/kiskisbella
Summary: “...I’ll always love you,” In a shaky voice, going quieter and quieter with each word slipping past chapped lips, “know that I’ll always love you...”





	White Mountain Laurels

**Author's Note:**

> if you don't know, these are the flowers in the fic! p poisonous, btw

In the cold of winter, with wind beating down at his window like it wanted to break in. The entire apartment as cold as it was darkly shaded in muted blue hues, bringing a shiver to dance over James’ skin. The apartment was too quiet, too cold, nothing like Keith was.

The lack of sound, of movement, unnerved James’ more than he’d care to admit.

Padding through the entry way and making his way into the living room, James’ was hit with the stench of iron, heavy and thick like fog. Below, resting at his feet, was Keith prone on the ground, body cold and limp, lacking life and lustre.

Lying in a puddle of his own blood, as cold as the room he fell in. And then he saw the flowers, pure white if not for the red dots stemming from the antlers, seemingly innocent as they tangled and wound their way out from Keith’s mouth. Spewing with blood drying on their petals. The tell-tale thorns, from the anger and frustrations the bearer had felt before their death, stabbed their way out from Keith’s chest, blood dripping down and hitting the ground with a reverberating thud. The sound obnoxious and loud in the silence of the room.

James fell to his knees, heart crushing under the weight of the implications. Of the things that had happened over the course of a month. Mind scrambling to dissect every little detail of their interactions. Desperation making him replay and weigh all of the nuances of Keith’s words, to see the signs he had previously been blind to.

Chest burning a hole where his heart was, a whimper and sniffle lilting through the air when everything made sense. Keith’s distance and lack of motivation to do anything other than go to his classes and study. Hell, even that was beginning to fall through the cracks, his grades slipped so far that he failed every single test they had the past week. And then that call tonight, like he was saying goodbye, out of breath as he muttered the words…

“ _I’ll always love you_ ,” in a shaky voice, going quieter and quieter with each word slipping past chapped lips, “ _know that I’ll always love you.._.”

“Keith…?” Voice quiet as the wind outside howled in crushing pain, crying out in anguish. A stab through his heart when the other didn’t so much as _move_ , let alone give a reply.

Part of him wasn’t ready, not accepting what had happened. He hadn’t even had the chance to reply, not that it would have done anything. Plenty of cases had happened where people had waited too long to give a reply, only to regret it later on when their partner wound up dead in a matter of days of them becoming a couple.

“Please wake up…” James begged, breath ragged, a hand tentatively resting on Keith’s shoulder to shake him awake. Like Keith had only passed out or…

“Please, I’m begging you here.” He pulled Keith into his arms, a chill running down his back, the coldness from Keith’s half frozen body ebbing in through his layers of clothes.

He rocked the two of them back and forth, not unlike a mother with her child, cradling Keith closer to him as a sob raked through his entire body. He sniffled, loud in the room they were in, hiding his face into Keith’s hair. James could feel the thorns stabbing into his body, not moving for the soul reason of being guilty to have caused this.

The feeling of a stabbing pain in his chest only grew louder and louder as time went on.

He didn’t move then he heard the front door open and close, not when the lights all turned on or when he heard a gasp behind him.

“James…”

It was when he heard Pidge’s voice that he finally turned to regard her.

“What…” Her words down in her throat when she finally saw what had happened to Keith, eyes going wide and the bright light shining from them dulled when she put the pieces together.

She turned and ran, a scream for help from Keith’s friends, all of them running in on the scene in Keith’s living room. Just as quickly as they came, the room fell into a hush, the sound of James sobs breaking the silence.

Shiro slowly made his way over to James, looking like he was trying to calm a wild animal with his hands held up in surrender. James looked away, taking in the features of Keith’s face as much as he could with the flowers growing before Keith. Undoubtably he would be taken away from him when the authorities got to the apartment. Vaguely he heard Shiro tell Lance to take Pidge away and Hunk to call an ambulance before he felt a hand placed on his shoulder.

Looking up, he saw Shiro give him a look of understanding laced with guilt and mourning, eyes wet with unshed tears as he tried desperately to keep strong for the others.

“You should come with me and we can get you cleaned up, James.” Shiro’s voice was shaky at best, trying to be calming but failing miserably.

James nodded dumbly, placing Keith down on the ground as gently as he could and followed Shiro out of Keith’s apartment, brain switching off.

He answered as many questions as he could for the police and was sent home by Shiro to make sure he got home alright. Somehow, he ended up in the shower, the water as hot as he could stand it, yet he could still feel the numbing cold from Keith’s body seeping through his skin and sinking all the way to his bones.

The words Keith had spoken to him before he died played over and over, like a broken record. Again, and again, his voice and the desperation that clung to it like a parasite. Not at all sounding like his usually confident self. Quiet and almost meek.

Again, his chest burned, aching horribly in a way that couldn’t be ignored. James coughed, hard and to the point that he was choking, leaving him gasping desperately for air.

When the coughing fit finally, _finally_ stopped, James was met with a tiny white bud, blood being washed away by the stream of water. He blinked, a detached feeling crawled up his body when he finally realised what it meant.

‘ _Oh…_ ’ He thought, not at all as shocked as he should have been.

Eventually he got out of the shower, dried himself off and slipped into his cold, _cold_ bed.

He wasn’t going to stop what he had caused, and he was going to live the rest of his life knowing that he would see Keith in about a month’s time.


End file.
